WASHINGTON: More Taliban militants may be scratched from a UN sanctions list to give a spurt to peace talks in Afghanistan as Washington came out to back the President, Mr Hamid Karzai’s plan to hold talks with the insurgent group.

UNITED NATIONS: India was on Tuesday elected to the United Nations Security Council after a gap of 19 years, with substantial support, taking over from Japan a position which would help it push more aggressively for the reform of the world body’s top organ.

HANOI: Warning that terrorism and piracy had reached transnational proportions, India today said both were “serious challenges” for security, peace and trade in the Asia-Pacific region and sought development of synergy and institutionalised cooperative arrangements to tackle them.

LAHORE: Dubbing the former military dictator, Mr Pervez Musharraf as “most corrupt, callous, immoral and ruthless ruler of Pakistan”, the Nawaz Sharif led PML-N has demanded that the government seek Interpol help to bring him back home to face trial for treason.

KIEV: A bus packed with rush-hour commuters crashed into a train at a level crossing in Ukraine today after jumping a red traffic light, killing 40 people and leaving another 10 wounded, officials said.

MOSCOW: FondServisBank, which works with Russian companies in the aerospace industry, said that it has hired Chapman to bring innovation to its information technologies.
It did not escape Russians’ attention that the initials of the bank, FSB, are the same as Russia’s main spy agency.

UNITED NATIONS: India is all set to get a seat on the Security Council as a non-permanent member after a gap of 19 years through the elections to be held tomorrow in the United Nations General Assembly.

WASHINGTON: The Afghan President, Mr Hamid Karzai confirmed in a US television interview that his administration has been holding unofficial talks with the Taliban “for quite some time” to try to end the nine-year war.